Bred to Kill

by Franck Thilliez

  “The little girls were found by their mother on Sunday evening. They were in their pajamas, drowned in the bathtub. You want me to describe the scene for you?”

  “No need.”

  “Through his bank records, we traced Hurault two weeks later to Madrid, in some fleabag hotel. He claimed he’d gone temporarily insane when he committed the crime, and that he didn’t remember killing the kids. The psychiatric expert testified that he’d suffered a psychotic episode brought about by the strain of his divorce. When he saw the bodies drowned in the tub, he panicked and fled. His lawyers cited Article 122.1 of the Penal Code, the clauses about not being responsible. After a long, drawn-out trial, they got their way. Sainte-Anne psychiatric hospital, for an indeterminate amount of time. After that the mother made several suicide attempts. She’s never gotten over it.”

  Manien fiddled with a ballpoint pen, not once taking his eyes off Sharko. His movements were nervous, staccato.

  “And what did you think? Did you feel he was responsible?”

  “What I felt didn’t count for much. I’d done my job. The rest wasn’t my business.”

  “Not your business? And yet you were seen at the trial. A trial you followed closely, as if you were personally involved.”

  “I’ve often sat in on the trials for my larger cases. And I was on vacation.”

  “When I’m on vacation, I go fishing or to the mountains.”

  He turned to Leblond.

  “What about you?”

  The reptile just stretched his lips in a grimace, without answering. Manien turned back toward Sharko, looking a bit more relaxed, even a bit mocking.

  “And you prefer to go watch trials. Whatever gets you off, I suppose. Did you know of any enemies Hurault might have had?”

  “You mean aside from every parent in France?”

  Silence. Eyes gauging each other. Manien dropped his pen and leaned forward, fist under his chin.

  “Did you know he was out?”

  Sharko’s reply, frank and without hesitation:

  “Sure. A few years ago he’d been transferred to La Salpêtrière, to prepare him for his eventual release. I’d been in treatment there for several months. You know what for, I presume.”

  Leblond gave an unpleasant smile.

  “Did you run into each other over there?”

  “In the padded cell, you mean?”

  “Don’t take it like that. You’re looking awfully nervous.”

  Sharko rubbed his forehead. The sun had been beating on the window all day; humidity had seeped into the walls like ringworm. The old impregnated odors oozed from all sides: cigarettes, sweat, worn-out wood. It stank of men.

  “No, ya think?” he retorted to the reptile. “You were still scooping out army latrines when I was already doing exactly what you’re doing now. Putting guys on the grill. What do you take me for, an idiot? Are you trying to trip me up? Make my life miserable just because I knew the victim? Why, because I did everything I could to get assigned to another squad?”

  “Can the paranoia. We’re just asking for your help. We’re all friends here, Chief Inspector, don’t forget. So—did you run into each other at La Salpêtrière?”

  “It happened once in a while. We were being treated in nearby departments.”

  “And did you see Hurault after he got out?”

  “Two days ago, in the Vincennes woods. Not looking too hot.”

  “You aren’t looking too hot yourself,” went the reptile. “Since you lost your wife and daughter, you’ve been seeing little blue devils all over the place. I can’t understand why they allow head cases to stay on the force.”

  It took barely a second for Sharko to leap from his seat and throw himself on Leblond. The two masses of bone and muscle slammed violently against a partition, sending a tray of paperwork flying. A chair fell over. His face tense, Manien managed to separate the two men before they came to blows.

  “Cut it out, goddammit! What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  Hateful looks, saliva on lips, veins bulging. Finally, each man sat back down. Sharko could feel his temples pounding, his blood boiling. Leblond went to light a cigarette at the open window while Manien cooled things down, at least on the surface.

  “Don’t mind him. All that stuff people say about you drives you out of your gourd, that’s understandable. You were a chief inspector, nice and comfy, and now you’re back shoveling shit. If I were in your shoes, I’d act the same.”

  “You’re not in my shoes.”

  Manien ignored the remark and continued working on Sharko.

  “So, since the hospital, you never saw Frédéric Hurault again until Saturday.”

  “Unless my memory’s faulty, no. But you know, Bourg-la-Reine and L’Haÿ-les-Roses are pretty close. It’s not impossible that I passed by him one day without really noticing. You always said I was capable of forgetting where I’d left my piece.”

  Manien turned toward Leblond, pondered him with amusement, then struck a still calmer pose. He was almost smiling.

  “Without really noticing . . . okay. Let’s get to the real reason for you being here. You know we found an eyelash on the victim’s clothes?”

  “No, I didn’t. It’s not my case.”

  “It’s so hard to avoid leaving any traces of oneself, with all our technical know-how. I’d even say it’s become impossible. Wouldn’t you say so? Skin cells, sweat, flakes, fingerprints . . .”

  “So what?”

  “The DNA we extracted from the eyelash was fed through the national database. We got a match. If we were basing our case on science alone, leaving aside our instincts as cops, we could say we’d got our man.”

  “That DNA wouldn’t happen to be mine, would it?” Sharko saw Manien’s throat tighten, his eyelid quiver. “That’s exactly why our info is now in the database, too,” he added. “We too are contaminants of the crime scene. It happens all the time, and it’s going to happen again in that monkey case I’m working on. DNA from the first responder cops, from the chimp, the animal keeper, the primatologist. Tons of fingerprints on the bars of the cage. Shit, you didn’t drag me over here just to accuse me, did you? What’s your point? To fuck up the few years I have left in this joint?”

  Manien hesitated for a moment, before regaining confidence.

  “That has nothing to do with it. The problem is the way you conducted yourself on the crime scene. You manhandle the body, you get all over everything. Were you out to pollute the scene so they couldn’t find the killer? Or did you just want to break my balls and make sure I’d can you? Be honest, Chief Inspector, and don’t forget we work in the same shop.”

  “I hadn’t slept a wink. I had a hundred things on my mind. The car window was wide open, and I wanted to see what kind of clown would go hang around that area at night. I leaned inside the car. I forgot to take precautions. I fucked up.”

  At the back of the room, Leblond was silently blowing smoke out the window, one foot flat against the wall. Manien returned to the charge:

  “You know, the guy who offed him in cold blood might not have been wearing a face mask . . . He probably wanted Hurault to see his face just as he shoved the screwdriver into his guts. Because . . . I don’t know, because maybe he wanted to show him he hadn’t forgotten, that he knew he was responsible for his actions? Thanks to the noncompetency ruling, Hurault served only nine years in psych; he would have spent at least twice that in the slammer if he’d confessed. Cops like us hate people like that, because they make us feel we’re doing all that work for nothing. What do you think?”

  Sharko shrugged. But Manien wouldn’t let it drop.

  “A little more than a year ago, you were still a behavioral analyst. You must have some answer.”

  “There are other analysts who are still active. Go ask them.”

  Sharko looked at his
watch, then stood up, gently this time.

  “I’ve put in almost thirty years in my career. Thirty flippin’ years of good and loyal service, locking up guys ten times worse than Hurault. I sweated out this job like you’ll never know, no matter how much shit you’ve seen. And you, you get it into your head to have my hide. You’re out to destroy me the way you’ve already destroyed so many others. Apart from the DNA from the contaminated crime scene, you don’t have squat against me. I crapped all over your crime scene, so why don’t you report me to Internal Affairs? Is it because they can’t stand you either? Maybe because you’ve already been too heavy-handed with suspects and even with your own colleagues? I already know you’re going to keep after this; you’re worse than a tapeworm. Are you really that bored?”

  He leaned toward the desk, his face just inches from Manien’s.

  “I’m going to say this once and for all: I had nothing to do with Hurault’s death. I’m a cop, just like you. I came back to Homicide because I was climbing the walls at my desk job in Nanterre, simple as that. And in case you still have any doubts, I’ve got a little piece of advice for you—you and that other moron over there: watch where you stick your flat feet.”

  “You watch. I need to find the guilty party, and you can bet I’m going to find him.”

  As Sharko was walking away, Manien added:

  “For now, this business stays between us. Nobody else knows about it. As for the DNA—the contaminant, like you said—piece of cake. I’m not out to cause you any trouble about that. You see how we’re looking out for your interests?”

  Sharko went out, slamming the door behind him, and walked quickly to the water cooler at the end of the hallway. He needed water, with a coffee chaser. Strong, black, and full of caffeine this time.

  Gripping a plastic cup, he veered toward his desk, where Levallois was sitting. Outside, on the roofs of the buildings, the setting sun spread its gilded pigments. In that unbearable humidity, Sharko set down his hot drink and dropped into a desk chair, beat. The day, and that kangaroo interrogation, had sapped him of the little energy he had.

  He nodded toward a leave of absence slip.

  “Give me one of those, I’m taking a day off.”

  “Anything wrong? What happened with Manien?”

  “Oh, nothing. I just need sleep, sleep, and more sleep.”

  Levallois passed him the form, which Sharko filled out sloppily. Bellanger, his boss, would find the request on his desk when he got back that evening or the next morning. He’d probably pitch a fit, but too bad: it was the least of his worries.

  “Any news about Louts?” asked the inspector.

  “I’ve just seen Robillard, who’s been on it since morning. He gave me the list of prisons and inmates the student visited. No less than eleven convicts, long-timers only.”

  Sharko signed the absence slip with a sigh and held out his hand. Levallois gave him the list.

  “Do we know why she went to see them?”

  The lieutenant was now standing, an empty thermos of coffee in his hand.

  “Not yet, we just got the list. Robillard will deal with it tomorrow. We have to continue sifting through her accounts and bills. Robillard made some good progress. Anyway, I’ve got to be home by eight, sorry. See you Wednesday, then—get some rest on your day off.”

  He disappeared in a flash, the door slamming behind him. Alone, Sharko let himself enjoy the calm in the room for a moment, eyes half closed. His temples were throbbing; the evil faces of Manien and Leblond floated beneath his eyelids. Two mad dogs snapping at his heels, who could easily make his life a living hell. If they started leaking information, rumors would start circulating around the hallways, and people would look at him even more strangely. Sharko, the ex-schizo. Sharko, the guy who saw shrinks, who wasn’t entirely right in the head. Was the Chief Inspector protecting a killer, or had he actually offed someone himself? Had he cracked up, blown a gasket, just when he was slowly getting toward retirement? This kind of breakdown happened so often. How many cops ended up alcoholics or depressives, drowning in the shit of their past years?

  With a last-ditch effort, he opened his eyes and quickly glanced down the list of prisoners. He looked without really reading—impossible to concentrate, to stay in the rhythm of the investigation. Too severe a headache, too exhausted, too everything.

  Only one solution: go home. Fall into bed. Try to sleep for an hour, maybe even two, before moping about at around 3 a.m. Like every night.

  As he was about to put down the paper, his eyes were suddenly drawn to a particular line in the list. The last one. Date of the meeting between Eva Louts and the inmate: Friday, August 27, 2010. Ten days ago.

  The institution and the convict’s name froze his blood.

  Vivonne Penitentiary.

  Grégory Carnot.

  9

  Everything had suddenly changed.

  No chance of going home now.

  Just ten days before her death, Eva Louts had been in touch with Grégory Carnot. The man who had destroyed everything.

  Sharko downed another cup of coffee. A taste of scorched earth clung to the back of his throat.

  Stoked by adrenaline and caffeine, he now paced the nearly deserted corridors of the Homicide unit. At that hour, only a few shadows remained, bent over their urgent cases: the duty officers, the guys from Narc who never left and watched over junkies in their cells, or else the ones who simply didn’t want to go home, devoured as they were by the job.

  He went into Robillard’s empty office, the lieutenant who was going through Eva Louts’s computer records: bills, various receipts, subscriptions. Behind him, through the small window, Paris was fading into night. The police station looked out over the city from here, like a bogus promise: Sleep tight, dear citizens, we’re watching over you.

  Sharko got down to the task: go back in time, note the possible blips in the victim’s life patterns. In front of him were two stacks of paper: the ones Robillard had already sifted through, and the others. He started reading through the first batch, the ones already analyzed. Very quickly, Sharko raised an eyebrow at photocopies of airplane reservations, issued by an Air France travel agency. On July 16, 2010, a little less than two months earlier, Eva Louts had taken an economy-class flight to Abraham González International Airport in Ciudad Juárez, Mexico; she’d stayed five days, with a return dated July 21.

  Then, eight days later, on July 29, Louts flew from Orly airport to Manaus, in Brazil. She’d returned from Manaus to Paris on August 5.

  Sharko rubbed his chin, lost in thought. Two successive trips to Latin America, before ending up at the primate center. And from what he could tell, these didn’t look like vacations. The inspector knew Juárez by reputation: it was one of the world’s most dangerous cities. The murders of Juárez women had contributed to the dark reputation attached to Mexico’s sixth-largest population center. Between 1993 and 2005, nearly five hundred women had disappeared, and three quarters of them had been found, all killed in the same way: torture, sexual abuse, mutilation, and strangulation. One of the most horrendous criminal cases of all time, never solved.

  Why would a twenty-five-year-old biology student want to go there?

  Intrigued, Sharko pushed the papers aside and had a look at the bills just beneath them. Lieutenant Robillard had already cross-referenced certain facts: the data showed that in Mexico, Louts had stayed at one hotel, Las Misiones, in the center of town, and had eaten dinner every night in the same place, probably the hotel restaurant.

  In Brazil, it was a different story. The student had used her Gold Card on the first day to withdraw a hefty sum of cash from a bank machine in Manaus—more than four thousand reais, or about two thousand euros—then had probably paid her hotel and restaurant bills and other expenses with that money, since there was no computer trace of her presence there.

  Robillard had hi
ghlighted another curious fact: she was planning another trip to Manaus. The reservation had been made the week before, with departure scheduled for two days later.

  Paris–Juárez–Paris, mid-July 2010. Five days in Mexico.

  Paris–Manaus–Paris, late July 2010. Seven days in Brazil.

  And again, Paris–Manaus–Paris, scheduled for September 8–15, 2010. A trip the student would never take.

  Faced with this mystery, Sharko recalled the words of the primatologist Clémentine Jaspar: “Eva confided to me that she was on to something big.”

  “Yes, but what, exactly?” the cop said aloud. “Is there even a relation between those trips and your murder?”

  He switched on the computer and Googled the map of Brazil. Twenty-five times the size of France, it was separated from Mexico by Central America and Colombia. The cop didn’t know exactly where Manaus was located, but the map showed that it was tucked away in the northern part of the country and was the capital of the state of Amazonas.

  Searching further, he discovered that Manaus was situated at the confluence of the Rio Negro and the Rio Solimões, just before their waters join to form the Amazon River. A huge city of nearly two million inhabitants, which had long subsisted on rubber and which today was becoming westernized: cars clogging the streets, industry, McDonald’s and Carrefour, commercial port with cargo ships. One of the most popular tourist destinations in Brazil.

  Sharko rubbed his eyes. They were burning, but no matter. His curiosity was piqued and he wanted to follow his research, his deductions, to the end. In any case, he probably wouldn’t sleep that night.

  He moved on to the other stack, the one Robillard hadn’t yet had time to look through. Again, numbers on bank statements. His eyes slid quickly over the figures. Nothing very useful. Withdrawals, everyday expenses . . . the next sheet, and the next . . . Then, suddenly, a particular line drew his attention: a withdrawal on Eva Louts’s bank card from an ATM in a French town called Montaimont, in the Savoie region . . . Two hundred euros, on Saturday, August 28, 2010, at 9:34 p.m.